Laundry Room and Pantry Before and After

I plan to make my kitchen curtains and finish decorating the kitchen this weekend. So hopefully you'll have a more exciting before and after than our laundry room and pantry. At least it's more exciting for me because I waited for months for the floral fabric to be back in stock, and it's really going to take the kitchen to the next level.

In other, completely unrelated to the laundry room and pantry, news, I think I've finally thought of a painting I'd like to make to hang above our bed. This makes me happy because as you'll eventually see, we have more wall space in our bedroom than we do in our living room and dining room combined. Also, I kind of started a painting a la Orla Kiely's stem print to hang above our sofa. So the living room won't be completely decorated until then.

So without further ado, I give you the laundry room and the pantry before I entered their sad white walled lives.

And after. I love purple! It was my favorite color when I was little. Pink couldn't be my favorite color because it was my sister's. Then I went through a phase in high school when I realized that I could love pink. But now I'm back to purple. In case you were wondering.

This space is kind of awkward since there's no place for outside shoes. I think I'll put some hooks on the wall behind the outside door for coats and Theo's leash.

I'm so glad I painted the pantry.

Look how much fun this contact paper is! Our food is happy for sure.

We don't have a whole lot of counter or cabinet space in the kitchen so the wine rack and wine glasses were relegated to the pantry. Which I guess isn't so bad since the pantry is so awesome. This is the only organizational bit of the pantry that I'm showing you because the food part kind of looks like a mess. The shelves are just so far apart. I need to get more of those wire add-a-shelf things.

From the Kitchen

Tortellini with Peas and Prosciutto. So yummy I made it again tonight. Couldn't find meat tortellini so we used cheese.

You have leftover tortellini because your mom gave you a large package of tortellini? I guess you need another tortellini recipe. Try this Cheese Tortellini Bake from Emeril. His Classic Bolognese sauce might take forever to make but it is really something. I think next time I might use a different cheese. Like maybe just sprinkle some parmesan on it once it's done baking. 

Guest Bedroom Before and After

Thanks for the comments. I'm glad to know you stuck around.

So here's the guest bedroom. It's a really nice size and the closet is huge. Closet space and decent room sizes were other things that were hard to come by. If it should happen that we have a kid or two while living here this room will become the guest room/ office/ craft room. So I'm not going to put any other furniture in here.

Have I ever told you that I hate the color yellow? Which is funny because I painted my room at my parents' house yellow, but that was just to match my Mickey Mouse sheet set.

And here we are after a nice coat of Sherwin William's Clary Sage. I had quite a difficult time picking a color for this room because I needed it to match the duvet cover that I love and I didn't want to paint the room pink or red or brown.  Are you noticing a trend here? Anyway, I am super happy with this sage color.

This was the last room that needed to be painted. My sister's impending birthday bonanza forced me to get this room finished. I'm glad for that because now it really feels like our home.

Guest Bathroom Before and After

Look at me, I'm a sad and dark little guest bathroom.

Yay! Now I'm a happy guest bathroom.

This is the original bathroom in the house. I'm sure it was the one and only bathroom before the house was renovated over 10 years ago. We saw a lot of houses with this built-in glass door cabinet and laundry hamper. The original doorways (I don't say doors because I don't think the doors themselves are original) have those vintage glass doorknobs! And the black and white tile on the floor made me love this bathroom at first sight. And that's saying a lot because I hate bathrooms. All this little bathroom needed was a fresh coat of happy paint. Oh and the grout in the shower needs to be redone because it's falling out. At least it looks happy, right?

I Miss You

I mean it. I miss you terribly. I used to sit in the living room with my laptop (you know, the one with the busted fan which I haven't turned on in months) and blog away. Michael would sit at his desk in the living room reading blogs and such on his computer. It was just something that we did. Kind of together.

So now I'm using Michael's mac and the thought of using it to blog makes me a little grumpy. Kind of like cooking in someone else's kitchen. That may or may not make sense.

I'm working more, but I certainly do have time to blog. I have been taking pictures of food! So I won't make this post about all the excuses I can think of for not staying in touch. I'm sure you want to see some before and after shots of our home.

Here's a picture of us in front of the house.

I finally uploaded all the pictures that have been on my camera since May. Looks like I do have quite a bit to tell you!

Dr. Husband

Our parents and my brother got to Charlottesville the Thursday before graduation. On Saturday we went to King Family Vineyard for wine tasting and to meet up with Pete and Amanda and his family. We're really going to miss those two.

Michael's brother and sister and their families got to Charlottesville on Saturday evening. Somehow we all managed to fit in our tiny duplex. 

Commencement was on Sunday. The graduate schools (Business, Law, Medicine, and one other) processed first. I was expecting the procession to be very formal, but everyone was walking down the lawn smiling and waving. A lot of undergrads were having a great time and some were holding balloons so their families could find them. It's a really big deal to walk down the lawn at graduation so I thought it was cool how laid back it was. The procession lasted one hour. The actual commencement exercises were nice and they managed to keep everything within an hour and fifteen minutes.

We walked to and from the commencement on the lawn. The medical school diploma ceremony was in the Paramount Theater on the Downtown Mall. I was impressed that they hooded and handed out diplomas in an hour. Here's Dr. Michael Perry and I:

 We cooked for everyone and hung out and enjoyed each other's company until it was time to say goodbye. I'm really going to miss living only 8 hours from Michael's brother and sister.

Update

Remember that time I was MIA and you had to read all my old posts to keep yourself from going into serious withdrawal? I can't promise that it's over, but I can tell you what we've been up to for the past month and a half.

You may recall that we are moving to New Orleans. As you know I don't plaster my whereabouts all over the internet so I hesitated to say that we were going to New Orleans to look at houses. We found a house and I think it will be such a wonderful home for us. It is a raised cottage with a backyard that Theo will be thrilled with. I've been promising him a yard since we got him. I have been waiting patiently for a home that we can paint and make our own. And deciding on paint colors is a subject for another post.

I went back to Charlottesville the week of Michael's graduation which I will blog about in the next post. He graduated on a Sunday and we had the house packed and we were gone by the following Thursday. A little faster than I had hoped, but my brother was helping us drive the moving truck so staying longer wasn't an option. I did get to say goodbye to my two groups of knitters, my med wife friends, and my boss and co-workers at the toy store. I had one last cupcake from Cappelino's Crazy Cakes, dinner at Mas, and chicken and dumplings at Eppie's.

We've been staying at my parents' house for the past couple weeks until we close on our house this week. I've started working for my dad's construction company, and Michael is taking it easy until orientation and residency starts.

I'm a little disoriented. I haven't really cooked a whole lot in the past few months, and I've crafted even less. Every now and then I start to miss Charlottesville. I think it will really hit me when we are in our own place and we're back into our own routine.

Hopefully our internet will be up and running quickly in our new home and I can start blogging about painting and decorating. Stay tuned.